Welcome back! In many of my classes, I will be giving out research paper details for the semester project. Here are a few things to keep in mind, especially the top reasons for negative comments on papers:

https://www.hamilton.edu/academics/centers/writing/writing-resources/writing-a-good-history-paper

Make sure you take a look at the History Handbook here on my website for more details about how to do this well, both in terms of your writing and the process of research. A lot of similarities exist between what I wrote and what's in this document.

Ready or not, here I come. We have a lot of work to do and very little time to do it. Let's get everything in order as quickly as possible to wrap up the semester.

Thanks for being understanding about the fact that I've been out on paternity leave. It's not a time to catch up on my grading, but I did some anyway. Everything that wasn't graded will be, when it's graded. Just check Canvas for updates.

View the below flyer and the attached rules for information about this year's Constitution Day Essay Contest, open to all Soldotna High School students. Submissions can be sent to NErfurth@kpbsd.org for consideration! Get them turned in by September 17th, 2019. Winners will be announced on September 19th.

It's the first day of school! Welcome back and I hope that you are ready to be curious and to learn.

Here's today's schedule:

I hope your summer has been good! I'm digging through resources and planning for the upcoming school year, and as usual I'm finding some good things that don't necessarily fit in with the classes I teach. I post them here anyway because they are interesting.

Here's an article on Persuasive Maps by OpenCulture that's connected to a database with hundreds of examples. Some are satirical, others make political points, but ultimately, they are all interesting.

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• 1. Photo by Kyle Rush. Found on Flickr.

Tonight, don't stay up all night cramming!

Instead, trust that all of the studying that you have done thus far is going to sever you well. Look back over your outlines from a few days ago, and look back at your focus lists. Practice your mnemonic devices. Finally, prepare some food for tomorrow morning (set aside what you're going to throw into your eggs in the morning so that you aren't digging around in the cheese drawer all bleary eyed five minutes before you have to leap into your car and speed to the school).

GET. SLEEP.

You will be extremely tempted to stay up all night trying to cram, but in reality, this will only harm you. Get a full eight hours of sleep, and your brain will be far more awake and capable of retrieving information and constructing your written responses.

YOU CAN DO THIS!

Just two days left!

Have a look at the APUSH Course and Exam Description, and leaf through the theme pages. This begins on page 10 of the PDF. As you're doing so, periodically pick one of the themes and see if you can think of examples throughout the time periods that we have studied. Make sure to consider a healthy mix - don't pick examples from early periods for the early themes and late periods for the end of the list. Mix them up.